Chapter Thirty-three - The Generals
"Out of our way!" Piccolo bellowed as he thrust his arms at a large group of the odd invading creatures who'd surged toward them. A rush of green energy surged out and incinerated the lot of them. They were at the edge of the gathered invading warriors now and it was evident just how much chaos the kids had caused in their assault. The attackers were scattered about randomly, still trying to regroup.
"They bought us time it seems." Videl said as she looked over the chaos before them. "If they hadn't attacked them then these guys would probably be all over the planet by now."
"There's Cheri." Vadora said as she spied her daughter off in the distance. An Oozaru was a hard thing to miss. "I'm going to head over there." She veered off from the main group, along with Tien, and flew off toward her daughter who was now shrinking.
"That's it." Vegeta said, pointing toward the stadium. The others looked and saw the pulsing light just inisde the partially destroyed arena. "That's where they're coming from, I saw it in the last vision." As he spoke the light expanded and a flood of new attackers came through.
Piccolo growled. "I know that energy." he said. "It's a tear between the planes. These things are coming from Otherworld."
"Otherworld?" Nova asked. "But... how? What are they?"
Piccolo shook his head. "I don't know. My guess is that they're all people who've died. Something must have happened in Otherworld...."
Vegeta snorted. "An H.F.I.L. jail break I'd bet. Well, how about we send them back where they belong?" he said as he started to descend. As he did he noticed the light, the tear according to Piccolo, expand and open again. This time he recognized those who emerged and the words the woman spoke.
"Sakura!" Hotaru cried, seeing her daughter laying in the crater. She quickly shot down and landed with her. "Sakura...."
"I'm ok." she said softly. "Looks worse than it... is...."
"Where are the others?" Yamcha asked, landing as well.
"We split up." Trunks answered. "Cheri and Akemi are off that way and I left Goten to deal with Frieza after I felt Sakura's energy drop."
"So, that was Frieza." Vegeta said. He and the others had landed in the crater as well. "I don't sense him anymore, and Goten's on his way here...."
"I actually feel sorry for him." Raditz said with a shake of his head. "How the mighty have fallen."
"Alright!" Goten cheered as he reached them and landed. "You're ok Sakura! We were worried when we couldn't sense you anymore!"
"Depends on your definition of ok." Trunks said with a frown.
"Well, you kids did good but we'll take over from here." Gohan said. He then turned to Vegeta. "Do you feel that?"
The Sai-jin nodded. The five that had come in before hadn't moved since Hotaru's earlier shout for her daughter. They were standing near the edge of the crater watching them and two of them were powerful, even with their energies supressed. "We can sense you up there, you know." he said,turning to face them.
There were five of them and each looked quite different than the next. They were standing in a line with the strongest in the middle, second and third strongest to either side of her, and the two weakest on the ends. Vegeta had only caught a quick glimpse of them in the vision so he took a moment to look them over.
The one on the far right, one of two females in the group, was the weakest of them all. She looked almost like a Human or a Sai-jin, only with dark red skin, a foot long black horn sticking out of the middle of her forehead, and long black claws on the ends of her fingers. Her eyes were green and her hair was blue and barely shoulder length. She was maybe half an inch short of five feet.
The fourth strongest, on the opposite end, was at least seven feet with arms as big around as the Sai-jin's waist. His skin was a pale blue, his face elongated like that of a lizard or horse, and his mouth full of sharp black teeth. His eyes were yellow green and reptillian looking and he was bald. He stood slightly hunched over and he had black spikes on his back and a long thick tail with a black spiked tip.
Directly to his left was the third strongest. He was about five and a half foot tall and about twice that around the waist. He had orange skin, black hair, purple eyes, and overly short arms and legs. The only other stand out feature was the lack of a normal nose, instead having two thin slits flat on his face in its place.
The second strongest stood on the other side of the strongest. He was about five foot eight and had solid black skin everywhere but the palms of his hands and his face which were a blood red. He was bald and had two large horns that emerged from around his temples and hooked back behind his head. His eyes were a solid glowing bright red and he had a long thin tail hanging behind him. He also had a pair of bat like wings folded about him like a cape.
The final member of the group was the second female. Around five feet with white hair and blue eyes she could have passed for a Human if it weren't for the golden yellow color of her skin. She, like the other four with her, wore robes of blood red. The matching attire, something the five didn't have in common with the other attackers, told him they were more directly connected to the current events than the others.
"So, are you the ones behind this?" he asked at last, eyes looked on the strongest of the five.
"In a manner of speaking." she replied, her voice soft and smooth. "We are the generals of the forces sent to conquer the Mortal Realm. I should thank you for saving us the trouble of tracking you down ourselves." Her eyes gazed over the gathering of warriors present. "I must say, I am impressed, for Shinkai scum you are fairly powerful. Were it not for our Master you would all surpass us...."
"Shinkai?" Piccolo repeated, scowling. The term sounded... familiar.
The golden skinned woman continued, turning her eyes toward Piccolo. "That one of you would be this strong is incredible indeed. But as I expected none of you are as dangerous as we were warned of. You are all pathetic...." her eyes turned toward Hotaru. "Some of you laughably so. I see now that word of your power was purely the delluded ramblings of those trying to not look pathetic by having been killed by you."
"Is that so?" Vegeta asked, smirking. "We'll see about that."
"Mortals are always so foolish." the weakest of the five said. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy sounding, like she'd been shouting non-stop for the last few days. "All that awaits you if you resist is your deaths and an eternity spent wandering the plane without the rest of the afterlife to soothe you."
"What are you talking about?" Piccolo demanded.
"The doors to Otherworld are sealed for good." she replied. "The dead can no longer crossover. A precaution taken so that you could not cause our Otherworld forces trouble after we had eliminated you here."
Piccolo's eyes widened slightly. "What? But that's impossible!"
The leader smirked as she spoked. "Nothing is impossible for the One True King of Makai."
/Makai..../ Piccolo thought, scowling. /Why does that sound... wait..../ "You... are you Mazoku?!"
"Ah, you know of the Realms then." the leader said. "But no, we are not the Mazoku. We are Demons of Makai."
"Piccolo, care to fill us in?" Gohan asked.
"Makai is our mirror." the Namek said. "Another Realm linked to our own. To keep the balance within reality two Realms exist. One ruled by good and one by evil. Our Realm is overseen by the Oni and the Kais while Makai is overseen by the Demons and the Mazoku."
"My, my." the fat Demon said, smiling, his voice a deep barritone. "For a Mortal you know an awful lot about the Realms."
"Let's just cut the chatter already." Vegeta interupted. "I don't particularly care who they are or where they're from. That they're in charge of the forces here, and that they're not related to Raven, is good enough for me."
"Agreed." Hotaru said standing back up and stepping around to stand between the Demons and her daughter. "I say we send them back to where they came from."
The weakest of the Demons laughed, the sound more like dry leaves rustling than a laugh due to the scratchy nature of her voice. "You can obviously sense Ki and yet you still think you can take us? I'm not even at full strength and I'm more than seventy times stronger than you. My full power is more than one hundred times greater than yours. You couldn't even tickle me."
"Do you mind if I fight her?" Gainin asked as he walked forward. "I haven't had a real battle in seven years." Hotaru glanced over to Vegeta and then both shrugged. Gainin smirked and slipped into a fighting stance. "Alright, this should be fun."
The Demon laughed again. "This one's so pitifully weak I can't even sense a power from it. Can I kill it, Angel?"
Angel, the group's leader, eyed Gainin up for a moment before replying. "Go for it Elazeba." she said at last. "But don't get cocky, there's something odd about this one."
"You worry over nothing." Elazeba replied as she took a few steps forward. "Alright Mortal, time to show you what real power is like!"
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Akemi slammed her fist into the face of the guy who'd just sliced off Cheri's tail but he didn't budge. "Uh-oh." she said as her eyes widened. Suddenly his arm came surging out and he backhanded her away and into the ground. Her impact blasted out a large crater and sent dozens of nearby Demons flying from the shockwave.
The impact also dazed her but she fought to clear her mind as quickly as possible. Cheri was unconcious due the surge of pain from losing her tail. She couldn't protect herself. Akemi pulled herself up out of the ground as quick as she could and then shook her head a little. Looking up toward where the guy had floated she saw him looking off another direction.
/Alright, now's your chance Akemi!/ she thought to herself. /You have to get it to work this time!/ She closed her eyes and concentrated. Pushing everything else and all other thoughts from her mind she focused only and completely on transforming. And then she felt the odd shifting and the building of power. A second later there was a flash of orange and she opened her eyes grinning.
She now had the orange stripes covering her forhead and arms, blue lightning like energy snapping around her silver Kinryoku enduced aura, solid yellow eyes, and purple hair. "Ha ha! I did it!" she cheered. "Alright, time to beat up the bad guy!" With that she surged up at Cheri's attacker again and once more slammed a fist into his jaw.
This time his head turned to the side from the blow but it still didn't give the results she'd wanted. It hadn't seemed to hurt him at all, just annoy him. "Uh... that's not good." she muttered, blinking.
"You are annoying." the man replied, turning his eyes to gaze at her.
Akemi quickly flew backwards so that he couldn't back hand her again. /He doesn't just look like Piccolo, he's strong like him too!/ she thought. /What do I..../ "AH!" she cried, quickly dodging to the right as he charged her. She soon realized she was too slow and he was too fast, though. There was no way she'd be able to avoid him.
She closed her eyes and tried to focus again, hoping to do another barrier like she'd used before, but before she'd even begun to try she heard a loud crack followed, a moment later, by an equally loud crash. Opening her eyes she saw Tien floating in front of her, transformed, and with a red aura pulsing around him.
"So, which one are you?" Tien called down as he crossed all four of his arms. "Slug or Sanil? You have to be one of them."
The Namek climbed back to his feet and glared up at his attacker. "That was a lucky shot." he replied, wiping a little blood off the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. "But don't think you'll get another." With that he clenched his hands into fists and let out a roar, a bright green aura flaring up around him as the ground shook.
And then he began to grow and his power to climb. Akemi's eyes widened as Slug reached twenty feet and kept growing. "Wow... he's as big as Cheri was...." she said in shock. Suddenly she blinked. Saying her friend's name reminded her that she was still passed out and she quickly flew down to land by the the girl and her mom. "Is she ok?" she asked, her silver aura fading as her hair turned silver again and she returned to normal.
Vadora nodded. "Yeah, she's fine. She's just in shock from losing her tail. She'll wake up soon."
Akemi nodded and then bent down and picked up the severed appendage. "Can it be put back on?" she asked.
Vadora smiled but shook her head. "No. And I don't think it'll grow back either, not with this kind of injury...."
"Awwww. She was fun to spar with when she was transfor...." She was cut off there as she gasped in surprise and fell over. Turning to look she saw the huge Namek's fist smashed into the ground and Tien floating a few feet away.
"Your power may have increased some but your speed is down." he said, cracking the knuckles on all four of his hands.
"Who are you? What are you?" the giant Namek asked as he pulled his hand back up out of the ground. "I'm far more powerful than I was while alive and yet we're almost even...."
Tien shrugged. "Just a warrior from Earth." he replied.
The Namek's eyes narrowed. "Earth? I didn't see you on Earth."
"Wasn't there at the time. I was here. But I heard all about you just the same." Suddenly he spun around and blocked a punch that had been aimed for the back of his head and then kicked the second Namek in the stomach. /Damn, both of them. Fighting just the big one would have been hard enough..../
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Vegeta shifted and turned slightly to look back the way they'd come as the Cyborg and Demon prepared to face off. "Damn." he muttered.
"What is it?" Raditz asked.
"A number of them have gotten behind us." he said. "They're heading for the palace and the city." Suddenly his eyes narrowed and he growled. "And Cold is leading them."
"Cold? Are you certain?" Nova asked, looking back. Vegeta nodded. "Then if it is alright with you I think I'll head back to deal with him myself."
"I'll help out." Krillin said walking over to them. "I can't do anything against Cold but I can handle the rest of them."
"Count me in, too." Yamcha said as he moved away from his wife and daughter. "I don't feel like standing around watching all the action."
"Agreed." Senator Vegeta said with a nod.
"I'm game." Sango added.
Raditz shrugged. "May as well."
Nova looked to each of them and then nodded. With that they set off after Cold and the forces with him. As they departed Piccolo sensed a pair of powers in the direction Tien had gone that caught his attention. Turning to look he spied the large Namek in the distance. "I think I'll take my leave as well." he said. "There's someone I want to talk to." and with that he shot off as well.